After almost two decades of a threat of jail hanging over his head, Jacob Zuma surely would never have anticipated it would come from such an unexpected corner, arrive so swiftly and in such dramatic fashion.
In four days the former President would have to present himself at his nearest police station to be processed and transported to a Correctional Facility to begin his 15-month prison sentence handed down by the Constitutional Court yesterday.
He has repeatedly said he was prepared to go to jail than allow himself to be paraded at the Zondo Commission in front of a Chairperson he alleged was biased and conflicted. 
He was at pains, in his various press statements, to point out that he did not take lightly his defiance of the Commission’s summonses and subsequently a Constitutional Court order that compelled him to appear before the Commission.
Curiously the Commission, faced with a defiant Zuma, turned not to the provisions of the Commissions Act under which the summons had been issued, but to the Constitutional Court for an order compelling Zuma to attend. 
This was even after it had publicly announced that it will lay a criminal charge of contempt against Zuma as allowed in the Commissions Act. The minority judgement in the subsequent contempt case in the Constitutional Court would later lament the lack of answers from the Commission as to why it chose to approach Court directly instead of using the mechanisms already at its disposal in the Commissions Act. More of that later.
It is an unassailable fact that President Zuma’s refusal to obey a court order to appear before the Zondo Commission constituted contempt of court. This is a criminal offence. Therefore the verdict of guilt by the Constitutional Court is absolutely correct. 
It first needs to be clarified that because the Zondo Commission had chosen to approach the Constitutional Court for an compelling Zuma to appear before it, he was therefore in contempt of the Court and not in contempt of the Commission as would have been the case of his contempt had been pursued under the provisions of the Commissions Act.
This basically put Zuma on a collision course with the Court rather than the Commission.
More interestingly, when the Commission came back to make an application for contempt after the former President failed to obey the order that he appears before it, it sought not that the Court forces him to appear anymore but that it punishes him with a prison term sentence for defying.
In the absence of any participation in the Court proceedings by Zuma, the Court seemingly had no choice but to find him guilty of contempt based on the one-sided evidence before it.
As if that was not enough the Court, in its majority judgement penned by veteran judge Sisi Khampepe, felt it also had no choice but to mete out a punitive custodial sentence as prayed for by the Commission.
The Court held that with his public statements, which the Court agreed were hearsay but felt it had no choice but to admit into evidence, Zuma put himself in a precarious position. It found that these statements were egregious, scurrilous, defamatory and impugned the integrity of the Court therefore justifying a punitive custodial sanction.
The Court in its majority judgement then inexplicably held that the parts of the very same public statements it had admitted into evidence that purported to explain Zuma’s conduct and give reasons for his contempt were irrelevant and did not warrant any consideration by the Court.
Basically the Court admitted into evidence untested and hearsay documents for the sole purpose of using selective content as the basis for aggravating circumstances in meting out a harsher sentence yet rules that any part of the same documents that seek to assist the respondent/accused, are irrelevant. 
This is just one example of a series of contradictory and seemingly unconstitutional findings by Judge Khampepe in her eloquently written majority judgement.
The minority judgement penned by Judge Theron delves further into these shortcomings.
She points out to the unconstitutionality of a custodial sentence in what is essentially a civil proceedings where the accused does not enjoy the same constitutional protections they would otherwise enjoy in a criminal case. This will include the right not to be deprived of one’s freedom without a criminal trial, the right to a public trial in an ordinary court, the right to remain silent and the right to a plea procedure. 
The minority judgement goes further to find that where an an applicant does not seek further compliance with the original order but seeks only to have the respondent punished for contempt then the matter should be referred to the NPA for a decision to prosecute in a criminal case. 
I am also of the view that the Constitutional Court inadvertently allowed itself to be drawn in what was essentially a dispute between President Zuma and the Zondo Commission and allowed itself to be used by the Commission, first to circumvent the law that governs its processes and that allows it to enforce its summons by granting direct access in the initial case that sought an order for Zuma to appear before the Commission.
By allowing itself to be used as a court of first and last instance, it allowed the Commission to deprive Zuma of his right to appeal in order to secure his appearance expeditiously when it had had since 2018 to secure his appearance before it.
Secondly, by giving in to the Commission’s demands for a punitive custodial sentence purely to punish Zuma instead of coercing him to remedy his contempt, it trampled upon his rights with no further recourse for him.
Many have argued, including Khampepe in her judgement that Zuma had ample opportunity to participate in the proceedings but chose to forgo that right and therefore he doesn’t deserve some of the Constitutional protections a criminal process would have afforded him. This is a worrying argument because it then means anyone who chooses not to assert a certain right then deserves to lose any of his other rights arbitrarily. This is not how constitutional democracy works. 
What then for GedleyihlekisaZuma of KwaDakwadunuse? 
Even when he has repeatedly said he would rather go to jail than appear before Judge Raymond Zondo, did he really think a prison term will fall before him so swiftly?
Is this evidence of his consistent allegations of a political ploy against him?
Is going to prison not too much of a prize to pay for public sympathy?
All we know for now is Jacob Zuma has become the first ever person in this country to be sentenced to a prison term without the benefit of a criminal trial. A bad and dangerous precedent has been set.
Where we can’t fault this judgement even as we believe it missed the mark on procedure and constitutionality, is in its bold fearlessness.